This post forms part of a series of posts which seek to identify the potential benefits of developing a social network targeted toward the needs of ABI victims. The other posts in this series may be located via the urls to be added to the bottom of each page.
The Internet of Things
The only means to control your own future is to invent the future. Those nations actively engaged in inventing the future are the ones most likely to prosper.
The Premier of Ontario recently travelled to China and encountered the future. A Globe and Mail story on the Premier’s travels contained this quote:
Ms. Wynne: “It is remarkable what you are doing here. I feel very much that we are seeing a future … I could not have imagined.”
Canada has a strange fascination with moving dirt around. We have this odd belief that moving dirt, whether it be bituminous sand, or the earth-moving associated with a public infrastructure project, will somehow create the jobs of the future and make us rich.
The people who will be rich in the future will be the people who move electrons, not the people who move dirt.
Applied Research
The Internet of Things offers the prospect of a world of connected devices. One area of application lies in the needs of persons with mobility concerns and / or cognitive deficits. There is tremendous economic potential in developing technology which assists the elderly in remaining in their own homes, or in the creation of assistive technology which speeds the rehabilitation of persons with ABI.
Even relatively simple applications can have considerable impact. Access to phone apps which provide feedback on caloric intake, and on exercise levels, has had a noticeable impact on my own rehabilitative progress.
Nortel Networks once represented over 50% of the capitalization of the Toronto Stock Exchange. No digger of bituminous sand has ever come close to such a market valuation. Nortel’s business? Advancing device connectivity. Nortel developed technology that increased the connectivity of places. The Internet of Things will increase the connectivity of devices within a single place. The future economic opportunity is far greater than the prospective benefits of moving bituminous sand.
The scale of the opportunity may be measured by the fact that almost every current IT firm operating in Ottawa may trace its linage back to Bell Northern Research, the parent company that later emerged as Nortel.
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This post is part of a series which seeks to describe the functions of the Daffodil Network. Other posts in this series are the following:
Daffodil Network – Introduction
Daffodil Network – Research Need
Daffodil Network – The Internet of Things
Daffodil Network – Shared Experience
Daffodil Network – Support Group Meeting